


Juggernaut

by Pandemic



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 18:22:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3701863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandemic/pseuds/Pandemic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'“<em>Jesus Christ.</em>” The other man whispers and Daryl chokes through a sound halfway between a laugh and a scream.</p><p>“Nope, just Daryl.” He jokes through clacking teeth and Rick barks a sound of disbelief that turns into fully fledged laughter and Daryl can’t help but join in. Michonne is the next to follow, her voice rich with warmth and when Abraham and Carl add to the sound Daryl thinks it’s the most glorious fucking thing he’s ever heard, the only choir he ever wants to hear again.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Juggernaut

Daryl thought this world has just about shown him everything it had to offer. Every dark secret, every inch of madness spread out on a platter for him to watch. He was wrong.

He can still taste blood in his mouth, rusty metallic bitter to the tongue. He can still remember Carl’s eyes, desperate and screaming with fear. The boy had grown up so much in the time he knew him, but no one could remain brave in the situation they had all found themselves in.

Daryl doesn’t think he had ever heard Rick speak so low, so angry, until that evening. _He’s mine_ rings in his head, clear and true. Rick protects his own. Rick _worships_ his own. Rick’s loyalty (and Daryl doesn’t even think that word encompasses all that Rick is) is beyond question, beyond compare. He lives in the belief his duty is sentinel, guard to those who might threaten his family. And they are family now, no question.

Michonne exchanges a look with Daryl, worried, as Rick strides ahead, left hand never straying from the holster at his hip. The man has stayed completely quiet since the ambush. He will never forget the sight of Rick leaning forward and ripping the man’s jugular from his throat.

It probably speaks volumes about Daryl’s character that when he watches Rick bloody and battered and still kicking out on instinct bred from his role as chief protector all he can think is _beautiful_.

Afterwards, through an unspoken exchange, Michonne takes the role of holding onto Carl, keeping him grounded as Rick falls apart. Daryl goes to sit beside Rick, still bloody, and feels himself fill with guilt. He knows it is unfounded, but he feels like he should have done better than fall back into the crowd he would have run with in the Time Before.

He tells himself that is why he holds so close to Rick, close enough they could be mistaken for one entity. He can’t bring himself to move away though, not when he’s found his lodestar in a sea of death and decay. Rick doesn’t question it, leans into the strength Daryl unconsciously offers.

When they reach Terminus he is Rick’s shadow. He spots Maggie’s poncho, the riot gear, and saddles up for war. Daryl Dixon was born for mud-slinging, for getting down and dirty and coming out on top, and he used to love it. Now he just raises his hackles and gears up to protect his family and unleash hell and hot fury on those who might take it away.

* * *

 

“They’re gonna feel pretty stupid when they find out.”

“Find out what?” the newest member of their rag-tag family asks, and Daryl wants to laugh. Like this, Rick is a juggernaut – mercilessly unstoppable in his destruction if his family is threatened. And right now Rick is at his most lethal with his back pressed against a wall, locked up in a storage unit. He’s like a leashed tiger, all this power contained ready to reach out and strike in a moment’s notice.

Daryl remembers watching the blood drip from Joe’s mouth and know that Rick is down, but he is most definitely not out.

“They’re screwing with the wrong people.”

* * *

 

When Daryl makes it back from Atlanta he first of all stumbles across Michonne. She grins at his approach, and welcomes Noah in without a second thought. It is actions like those which remind Daryl of the humanity, the empathy that they all try to cling onto. He notices her katana back in place between her shoulder blades, and doesn’t ask. Rick can tell him, he thinks. But then he notices her solemn eyes, and the panic sets in.

Daryl picks up the pace toward the church till he is practically running through the grass, blades parting as though they sense his urgency. Pushing the doors open, his eyes are wild, spotting the blood staining the floor and the smell of death still lingering.

Rick stands with his back toward Daryl, lit up by the stained glass behind him and if Daryl’s heart wasn’t already clogging up his throat he’d laugh at the irony. And maybe it is the fact he’d just found Beth to only lose Carol or maybe it is the fact for ten minutes he believed his touchstone had been wiped out because he wasn’t there to watch the back of the only thing left worth protecting, but he darts forward and grabs the former sheriff’s shoulder and holds on. Rick turns and staggers with recognition and relief crowding his eyes.

“Daryl.” He chokes, “God.” And Daryl isn’t sure if he’s thanking the man upstairs or setting up altar at Daryl’s feet.

Daryl mutters countless apologies, Rick holds his hands out, shaking, holding the bloody red machete.

They stand, asking for forgiveness in one another in those four walls and a roof, stained glass window painting their faces red and gold.

* * *

 

When they find Alexandria, something in Rick changes. Daryl watches, he knows Rick better than his own skin. Rick’s shoulders roll and shrug off the weight of months out there, settle lower, eyes brighter. He laughs sometimes, the husky unused chords doing something fierce to Daryl’s heart.

Daryl doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like these people and their talent to brush over the lines of Rick the Protector and make him look so ordinary. He looks like a tiger dressed up as a sheep in his police uniform and it doesn’t suit him one bit. Plus, he doesn’t like how the blonde wife looks at the muscles that fill out the uniform.

It doesn’t go unnoticed that Rick practically _preens_ at the unmistakeable attention. Daryl thinks that is maybe why he goes out wandering when Aaron shows him the bike, thinking the roar of the engine will drown out his weary heart stretching and shattering. He watches Buttons go down and thinks _well shit_ that’s him. How’s that for a fucked up piece of imagery. So he begins to stick to Aaron and Eric like glue, thinking that if the rest of his family is splintering he can at least burrow into something new and hold on. They don’t ask questions although he thinks he can spot recognition in Aaron’s eyes sometimes when he sees Daryl watch Rick’s movements, watch him lean into the rare moments of conversation Daryl can steal from the sheriff. Aaron will tell Daryl later that Rick watches him back with the same touch-starved expression, like Daryl’s got the sun and stars in the palm of his hand.

He still finds Lil’ Asskicker from time to time and hunkers down to play with the young girl. They’d held off teaching her to walk, too scared of her going wandering helpless like a piece of bait. Now she uses shaky legs and walks over to Daryl, cooing, much to his delight. Rick once watched the pair, so obviously enamoured of one another.

 _“She adores you y’know?”_ he’d said, and Daryl was too afraid to answer back that the reason he did was because she was a piece of Rick, the same way he cuffs Carl round the ears when he misses a target in practice and tries to teach him to aim straighter.

Those kids are Rick’s, and therefore in a feral link born out of survival, they are the family’s kids. Daryl will protect them to his dying day.

Which, apparently, is today. They are surrounded, him and Carl. A run gone wrong. Walkers attempt to scramble up the side of the truck they’ve taken shelter on top of, growls and roars clogged with blood in that unmistakeable way that means there is very little likelihood of them getting out of this one alive.

“Carl.” Daryl speaks to the boy beside him, who shakes and jitters with more than the cold hitting their faces, “ _Carl_ , listen to me.”

The boy looks up with eyes so like Rick’s it hits the hunter in the heart like a well-aimed arrow and he follows the tug back to the root, “When I jump down I’ll distract them okay? I’ll lead them off. You go, you _run_ , got it?” Carl looks to protest, tears trembling at his eyes, “No, no don’t say anything. I’m meant to be out here. I’ve always been out here. You need to get to Rick, get Lil’ Asskicker. Rick won’t make it without you, alright? No I _mean it_.” He says, voice breaking on a shout to cut off Carl’s near protest at the source.

“He won’t make it without you either.” Carl voices quietly and Daryl _refuses_ to cry. He won’t let his last memories of this kid be hazy. He clasps Carl by the shoulder and feels his mouth stutter around a smile.

“See you on the other side kiddo.” And with that, he stands and runs, taking a flying leap off the edge of the truck, ducking and rolling as he hits the ground.

“Come on!” Daryl shrieks, “COME ON!” voice desperate, he offers himself up like a lamb to slaughter and the stupid beasts begin to follow him, to stumble and turn in sluggish unison. He keeps an eye on Carl who nods once and then jumps off the truck on the other side. Daryl thinks he sees a glimpse of the boy running and he smiles, bloody and full of broken teeth before returning to the task at hand. “COME ON YOU DICKS.” He roars, ferocious and deadly.

* * *

 

Carl runs, feet heavy, legs full of lead and eyes scratchy with tears still unshed. His feet hurt from the jump from the truck and he thinks he might have sprained something, but the pain is negligible in comparison to what he’s dealt with before. Especially in comparison to watching Daryl jump off the edge of that truck and wonder how on earth he’s gonna explain this to his dad. He’d only let Carl out on this run cause Daryl was riding shotgun. Daryl, and Carol, were the only ones trusted with himself and Judith. _The unholy triumvirate_ Michonne would call them with a smirk and Rick would grin before slapping her on the arm. Carl understood why, Daryl and Rick were a duo you didn’t fuck with, arrows and guns pointed with the cold assurance that the one at the end of the trigger would strike at the first instance of threat to their fucked up little family.

And Daryl was gone. _Fuck Daryl was gone._ Carl stumbled, once, righting himself through tears that now streamed unbidden. He initially thought the rumble of a car in the distance was a trick to his ears before he recognised the plates, running out onto the road and waving with every bout of strength he had left.

His dad gets out the truck whilst it’s still rolling, Michonne and Abraham quick to follow. He grabs Carl and cocoons him in a hug so fierce Carl swears he feels something pop.

“Daryl?” are his dad’s first words, and Carl chokes back a sob. Rick shakes his head slowly, fearfully, “ _Daryl?_ ” and Carl feels the man’s knees nearly buckle.

“C’mon, c’mon, quick. He might…” Are Carl’s only words, and the group are back in the car, burning rubber down the concrete before another word can be uttered. Rick has his hand grasping Carl’s shoulder, knuckles white and fingers shaking.

* * *

 

Daryl honestly thought it would go down a bit differently to the scene he’s faced with. Stuck in a shitty car with walkers painting the windows red with blood and broken fingernails, the only soundtrack their gurgle and moans. He’s out of arrows, out of luck, and out of time. He thinks he can hear the slight crack of the back window but he refuses to turn and see if that’s the case.

He used to want a blaze of glory in the time before, of arrows flying and drugs pumping through his blood and seeping through his skin. In the time after it moulded, adapted to back to back with Rick against a legion of walkers, the only protection being each other.

He’ll admit now, to himself, that it had changed again to a death of old age, following Rick into the ether surrounded by those he loved and adored. Daryl closes his eyes for a moment and let’s himself dream.

The stench outside is stifling at close range, and refuses to allow Daryl to rest and think of something else. His quiver is empty, barrel barren and fresh out of ideas. The cacophony of noises is deafening and he hates that this fucking world won’t even let him have his fantasy life even in the face of death. He reaches forward to click the lock, to accept his fate, when the choir of groans changes, takes on a different tone, begins to quieten as though one by one they are falling silent. Daryl looks up, through the mass of seething bodies, and he thinks he sees a sheriff’s hat through the blood, and when he sees the glint of a katana he full on _smiles._

The bodies turn, change, and fall in the face of a force so overpowering and lethal as Rick and his team. Daryl watches from the safety of the car until Abraham forces a gun through the gap in one of the windows and Daryl needs no more invitation to charge out and blast his way through death until he is back to back with Rick. His shoulders roll back and settle, acknowledging that the man is back home, back exactly where he wants to be.

And when the last walker falls it takes a moment for Daryl’s brain to catch up, to realise that he’s not dead or worse, and when it does his hands begin to shake. He drops the gun with a clatter, scared of pulling the trigger when he can no longer control its aim and Rick turns toward him, grabbing him and holding him like he might drip through his fingers.

“ _Jesus Christ._ ” The other man whispers and Daryl chokes through a sound halfway between a laugh and a scream.

“Nope, just Daryl.” He jokes through clacking teeth and Rick barks a sound of disbelief that turns into fully fledged laughter and Daryl can’t help but join in. Michonne is the next to follow, her voice rich with warmth and when Abraham and Carl join in Daryl thinks it’s the most glorious fucking sound he’s ever heard, the only choir he ever wants to hear again.

He’s woefully unprepared for when Rick stops, quick and sudden and lunges forward, bringing Daryl’s mouth to his own and kissing the shit out of him in the midst of a sea of fallen walkers.

Carl giggles and Michonne claps once, a single ring of sound so sharp it carries across the abandoned car park.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr.](http://youaremylodestar.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Companion piece from [Rick's POV](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3855619).


End file.
